Former star EP cricketer Amm dies, aged 51
FORMER top Eastern Province cricketer Philip Amm died at his home near the Stone Crescent Hotel outside Grahamstown yesterday.
Amm, 51, who opened the batting for Eastern Province through the 1980s and ’90s and made a double-century in the 1989 Currie Cup final against Transvaal which helped EP win the Currie Cup for the first time ever, died from causes which are yet to be established.
Grahamstown police spokeswoman Captain Mali Govender said police were called to the home at 3.30pm.
“We have opened an inquest docket into the death,” Govender said. While the cause of death was unknown at this stage, no foul play was suspected, she said.
“The family is very well known in the area,” she said, adding that she believed Amm had two sons.
Amm was educated at St Andrew’s College in Grahamstown and the University of Port Elizabeth ( now NMMU) and played EP schools cricket in 1981 and for South African Schools the same year.
His former teammates included former cricketing greats such as Meyrick Pringle, Kepler Wessels and Mark Rushmere.
The right-handed batsman and legbreak bowler was the brother of another EP cricketer, Peter Amm.
Paying tribute to Amm last night, Wessels said Amm had been part of Eastern Province’s most successful cricketing era.
“He made a huge contribution. He was talented and good. We are all very saddened by his premature death,” he said.
In a social media posting expressing shock yesterday, Pringle wrote that he had just heard of Amm’s death. “Terrible news, such a talent,” he wrote.
Peter Amm could not be reached for comment last night.